About

RickB- Human, Artist, Fool.

Ynys Mon, UK.

The blog is called ten percent because of what Kurt Vonnegut wrote when remembering Susan Sontag - She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.-

And I'm writing it because I need the therapy and I lust for world domination.

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Obama Kills 140 Civilians For Every Alleged Al Qaeda Target

6 January, 2010 — RickB

Bush killed 49 per target, comes to something when that becomes the good old days…

PESHAWAR: Of the 44 predator strikes carried out by US drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan over the past 12 months, only five were able to hit their actual targets, killing five key Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but at the cost of over 700 innocent civilians.

Over 700 killed in 44 drone strikes in 2009

According to the statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, the Afghanistan-based US drones killed 708 people in 44 predator attacks targeting the tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009.

For each Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die.

Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians, claim authorities.

The success percentage for the drone hits during 2009 was hardly 11 per cent. On average, 58 civilians were killed in these attacks every month, 12 persons every week and almost two people every day. Most of the attacks were carried out on the basis of human intelligence, reportedly provided by the Pakistani and Afghan tribesmen, who are spying for the US-led allied forces in Afghanistan.

Of the five successful predator attacks carried out in 2009, the first one came on January 1, which reportedly killed two senior al-Qaeda leaders – Usama al-Kin and Sheikh Ahmed Salim – both wanted by the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Kin was the chief operational commander of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and had replaced Abu Faraj Al Libi after his arrest in 2004.

The second successful drone attack was conducted on August 5 in South Waziristan that killed the most wanted fugitive chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan Baitullah Mehsud along with his wife.

The US State Department had announces a $5million head money for information leading to Baitullah, making him the only Pakistani fugitive with the head money separately announced by Islamabad and Washington. –DawnNews

Related

Jane Meyer on this topic was the single most disturbing article I read in 2009.

What’s worse, these attempted assassinations that have killed hundreds of innocent bystanders or the torturing of suspected terrorists? No wonder this administration has steadfastly refused to prosecute the previous administration’s war criminals. Those thugs are beginning to appear to have acted with relative restraint.

Assassinating people from the sky is despicable. Killing dozens of innocent bystanders in the process? The depravity! How can this kind of behavior be justified on 44 separate occasional?!

In the future, when such weapons are available to many other countries, their use in this fashion will surely be classified as a war crime.

It can’t, this is why the US left have to take on imperialism or just be seen as more slick salespeople for murder. Wait till a drone wipes out a hundred New Yorkers, that’ll be called terror and murder, but when the president does it, that is not a crime as Nixon said. Imperialism makes a country a criminal and all its leaders are just directors of the criminal enterprise. Different parties make no difference to the underlying project unless citizens oppose it at the base level, of which there are only a minority doing at present and they are not liked by either big party. The Murders will continue and small acts of resistance will be the ‘terrorism’ that justifies further entrenchment of the imperial assumptions…but then there’s China, world is not unipolar forever.